Eurail Pass and local trains in Italy

Italian trains run by the state railway (Trenitalia) are, of course, part of the Eurail system. The Circumvesuviana is a privately-owned train, and does not accept the Eurail Pass. Have you checked to see which trains on your itinerary need reservations and/or overnight accommodations?

I am in the process of checking on reservations now. One of the things I am looking at is how to get a "pass holder" (assuming that includes Eurail passes) reservation on a night train from Rome to Frankfurt on the last leg of my trip. Since I am a solo female passenger, I want to book a cabin for myself on the Milan-Frankfurt leg. I think I just need to keep researching on how Eurail pass holders make reservations, especially on the one night train I need.

If anyone has experience with this, I'd like to know how you did it. Thanks!

Kathleen, I'm betting that you will need to return to www.raileurope.com to get the advance night train reservation you need. I haven't figured out how to purchase advance ticket reservations on the Italian railsite with a Eurail pass. You can do this when you get there but the night train could be full by that time. I can see the train run on the Raileurope site.

Thanks, Larry. I will look into that. Also am looking at the www.citynightline.ch website, because my connection out of Milan to Frankfurt is on that line.

There is only one train out on 23 Oct that works for me, because I need to stay within the 3-countries on my pass. I'm still researching the CNL site to see if I will be able to make advance reservations before I leave home. If not, my intentions are to try to make my CNL reservation immediately upon my arrival in Frankfurt and before I head to Switzerland.

You should be able to make a reservation for sleeping accommodations on that run by calling the German national rail site, which is on the web at bahn.de (a great place, btw, to check schedules all over Europe.) Try 011-49-1805-996-633 or, if not there, at 011-49-1805-141-514. If you try during the daytime their time, you'll have better luck getting an English-speaking agent (they're 8 hours ahead of you.) This will also ensure you the reservation required on the first leg of your journey, too. Their prices should be much cheaper than raileurope's. But they will only book 89 days out.

Thanks, Norm for the info. You all have been great!